


A Bene Placito

by strixus



Category: Dragon Age
Genre: Angst, Cock Piercing, Genital Piercing, Genital Torture, Gore, M/M, Other, Pain, Psychological Torture, Surgery, infibulation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-23
Updated: 2011-12-23
Packaged: 2017-10-27 22:08:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 12
Words: 8,872
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/300567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strixus/pseuds/strixus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The mages of Tevinter protect their property. Anders is called upon to fix an injury inflicted upon Fenris by his past masters.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> For the Dragon Age Kink Meme. Incomplete. I WILL finish this.
> 
> There are two enormous Roman statues, more than life-size, of naked slaves in the Louvre Museum in Paris, France. Both have their penises bent double so that the head points towards the body. In the one on the left, the penis head lies on top of the shaft; in the other the penis head is on the left of the shaft. In both, the sculptor has been exact in his work, and it is possible to make out the size and position of the rings.
> 
> Taking the one on the left first, the ring is clearly quite large, possibly an inch and a quarter in the original. The ring passes horizontally through the shaft of the penis, a little behind the glans. The other half of the ring is attached close to the trunk of the slave, and, judging from its position, passes horizontally either through the shaft of the penis at its point of attachment or through the suspensory ligament.
> 
> In the second case, the ring is a little smaller. It has passed vertically through the shaft of penis again close behind the glans, and a little to the side of the urethra. The other side of the ring is again attached close to the torso and passes vertically either through the shaft of the penis close to its base, or through the suspensory ligament.
> 
> The two slaves are clearly a matched pair, heavy, muscular, with short curly hair, and as alike as brothers. The body proportions suggests a possibly Germanic origin.
> 
> There is documentary evidence to suggest that the rings were fitted shortly before puberty or just at its onset. They would be of bronze, and welded shut by pieces of red-hot charcoal and a blow-pipe. Erections must have been very painful, and it is certain that the slaves could never achieve penetration. Orgasm and ejaculation would have been infrequent. and probably avoided as far as that was possible.
> 
> Such slaves were preferred to eunuchs. Eunuchs were prone to a number of health problems and would never be as strong as a fully mature man. Infibulated like this, there would be no risk of pregnancy amongst the female slaves, (and they would be infibulated also), nor of violation of the free-women and children of the house-hold. The slaves would tend to avoid thoughts of sex, because of the pain of erections, and would thus concentrate on working hard for their master.
> 
>  
> 
> Anon feels terrible, but is horrified/fascinated by this, and since Tevinter is more or less Rome with more magic, it's more than plausible for Fenris to have undergone something like this (although perhaps not as extreme). Maybe Isabela seeks to have things fixed, or Sebastian is horrified at Tevinter cruelty. Fenris seeing Anders to have whatever was forced on him removed so he can be with Hawke would be interesting too.

Night in Darktown wasn’t much different from the day, Anders mused as he puttered about his clinic. If anything, it was perhaps more pleasant than the day, for it lacked the forced wakefulness of the myriad of hopeless souls trapped down here by circumstance. And, at night, he could work in peace, organizing the meager supplies of his clinic and cleaning the work surfaces for the busy day to come.

Thus it was that Anders was scrubbing down a table in the side room of his clinic when he felt the sudden shift in the air of someone stepping in behind him. He turned, hands raised and a spell ready, only to see Fenris glowering at him.

“What in the name of the Maker are you doing here at this hour?” Anders could barely stand the elf at the best of times, but it was behavior like this that really rankled.

“You,” Fenris said with the dull rasp of his voice, “Are a healer, are you not?”

“Yes, and what of it? You’ve known that about me since the day Hawke first dragged you down here with him.”

“You will heal anyone if they ask? Of anything you can?” The questions were hypothetically phrased, and Anders was getting tired of having his time wasted.

“Yes, and yes.” Anders glowered, feeling Justice stir slightly in his mind in response to his agitation. “Blight it I even heal Isabella of whatever the next strange thing she’s picked up in the Hanged Man or at the Docks. What is it to you?”

“Would you heal,” Fenris looked down at the dirt floor, still standing in the doorway as if to block Anders from running, “Even me of something?”

Anders pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. “Yes, even you, you mage hating, ungrateful elf. I’ve done it before, why are you asking?”

“Yes, you have. But only at Hawke’s request.” It was a statement. “What about of a - an injury not incurred following Hawke?”

Anders glared. Was this a bloody game for the ex-slave? “It depends.”

“On?”

“If it is something that can be healed.” Anders looked closely at Fenris, and noted a strange sag to the usually defiant frame.

“Of that, I am unsure, mage. But would you be willing to try?”

Justice rumbled in Anders’s head, cutting off his biting retort. This one has suffered much injustice. Even if he inflicts his biases on others, justice must be served.

“Oh, alright. What’s wrong with the big scary elf that he needs my help with?”

“If you are merely going to mock me, I shall leave now.” Fenris’ glare could have melted stone. “If not, may we find somewhere more private to do this?”

Anders looked around, and shrugged. “Pull the door you are doing a good impression of shut, and we can do it here.”

Fenris, surprisingly, obeyed. He stepped closer to Anders, sending every hair on the mage’s body into a quiver with anxiety, but he seemed not to be set to kill him - for the moment.

“So, now, what do you need me for?”

Fenris moved to the far side of the room, pacing yet trying to stay as far away from Anders as possible. Anders could not help but noticing a slight hunch to his walk, and a down cast of his eyes.

“Mage, do you know much of how slaves are treated in Tevinter?” Anders shook his head. “The most valuable of us are well treated for slaves, but we are also subject to some of the worst cruelties. We are denied basic things - some of them quite intimate. To guard against slaves - intermingling - in the wrong ways, the Magisters have methods of prevention.”

“What do you mean?”

Fenris shook his head. “May I sit? It will be easier, I suspect, to show you.”

Anders nodded, still wondering at the odd behavior from the elf, and watched as he slowly removed the lower portions of his armor, then sat, his smallclothes little more than a wrap of cloth around his groin and hips. This too he removed, keeping his back to Anders until he sat, pulling himself up on the table that Anders kept in the room for patients. When he did sit, Anders found himself fighting back a raging Justice.

“Maker,” was all he could manage.


	2. Chapter 2

Anders had seen injuries of war, he had seen injuries of demons and magic and darkspawn. But no matter what, he still could not stop being amazed at the injustices one man could perpetrate on another. His eyes were drawn first to the ring of - was that red steel - that pierced horizontally through the shaft of the elf’s cock near the head and through the foreskin as well, which then served to anchored the entire member near its base as it was doubled back on itself. There were other things, subtle things, that looked wrong about the organ, but he could not quite tell what. This was horrible. He felt Justice stir again, filled with the slick blue rage of the spirit’s nature, but forced the spirit down, so that he could remain focused.

“If you are quite done gawking, mage?” Fenris’ voice was sharply defensive, pulling Anders attention back to his face.

“I-” His mouth felt too dry, and he swallowed, trying again, “I will have to examine you, to make sure that I can - can-” He saw Fenris glaring at him, and sighed. “I will have to touch-” He waved a hand towards the elf’s exposed groin.

Fenris all but snarled at him, then seemed to check his reaction. “If that is what it takes, do it, mage. But do not think I like the idea of yet more magic touching me.” Anders had to resist rolling his eyes in reply.

Anders crouched before the table where Fenris sat, bringing his eyes near level with the area of focus. He carefully reached out to touch the slightly tanned skin, making sure Fenris saw the hands coming up before placing them just inside the crease where leg met body on the inside, careful to avoid touching the tips of the lyrium lines that curled along thigh and belly. He carefully threaded a trickle of magic through his fingertips, not seeking to heal but merely to feel what damage might be present. He dared not begin healing something as delicate as this without a complete understanding of the situation. There was a tensing of muscle as Fenris felt the magic, but the elf did not move, and slowly Anders began to understand the extent of what had been done to the other man.

His first surprise was to find a ring of what felt like silverite buried completely beneath the skin, encircling the base of both shaft and balls just tightly enough that Fenris must be constantly aware of it. He traced its circumference with his magic, feeling the tube of scar tissue that encircled it, and the ridge that ran just above it. It had been put in magically, fused into the flesh with a spell. It made his stomach churn to think of the pain that doing such a thing would have caused, let alone the pain of healing.

Feathers of magic tugged at his attention, drawing Anders’ mental probings deeper. There, painfully obvious, was the ring of red steel, welded shut and then turned so that the weld was inside the body. It must have been done while still molten hot, for there was scaring of the ligaments in the lower abdomen. But worse was where the ring ran through the lower end of the shaft, for there his magic told him that not only did the ring bisect the tube of the flesh, and block the passage, there was also a metal tube of some sort, perhaps only as long as a joint of his finger, that the ring secured in place within the passage. The foreskin, as if this insult were not enough, had been sutured closed completely. There, scar tissue had built up from what seemed to be numerous infections.

Then how does he - oh Maker burn them. His eyes found the answer to his half asked question before the magic did. On the underside of the shaft, the magisters had inserted a metal grommet of sorts, holding open a hole into the interior passage of the shaft. Even basic bodily necessity had been made an act of shame for the slave. Justice howled in his head, but Anders knew he could not let the spirit out now, not with Fenris here and so - so exposed. He might not like the elf, but this needed to be healed, no matter who it was done to.

Withdrawing the tendrils of magic from the flesh, Anders looked up at the pinched face of the ex-slave. “Why,” he asked quietly, “Why haven’t you had a healer look at this before?” Fenris shook his head, and made an encompassing gesture with a still gauntleted hand, taking in his entire body, as if that was an answer.


	3. Chapter 3

Anders ground his teeth in frustration, and stood to look the elf in the eyes. Well, if he would look up and stop brooding, I could look him in the eyes. “I can fix most of this, I think, but it will require me to get some tools first. There is more here than magic alone can deal with.” Fenris only nodded slightly, and waved a hand dismissively.

Anders swore under his breath as he left the small room, being careful to pull the door shut behind him, and moved through the darkness of his clinic to the back shelves. In a locked cabinet, he kept a wooden case of tools used for various surgical procedures - usually removing broken glass from wounds, truth be told. He also grabbed a packet of clean bandages and linens, and a vial of one of the few herbal anesthetics he could brew here in Darktown. It wouldn’t do much for the pain except deaden the flesh some, but it might be enough. Then, with these and a relatively clean set of bed linens tucked under his arm, he returned to the little room.

Fenris still sat, placidly, though he flinched at the sound of the door. How did he manage to look both so infuriatingly stubborn yet so demure at the same time, Anders wondered, then supposed it was a survival trait. Instead of pushing the issue, he glowered at the dim light, but knew it would have to suffice. Fenris flinched again, possibly mistaking the glare for one aimed at him, but then returned it with an icy stare.

“Hop down for a moment, let me put some sheets on that table,” Anders gestured as he set down the box of tools and bandages on a small shelf that folded out of the wall. He heard Fenris’ bare feet hit the dirt floor, and without looking further Anders spread the dusky sheet - given to him by a widow from Lowtown whose grown children had finally left her home - over the table. Gesturing at the table, but turning away to pull a cracked ceramic bowl from one of the lower shelves in the room, Anders tried not to feel the knot of queasiness in his stomach.

Instead, he busied himself opening the box of instruments and laying out a few that he knew he would need. A few were some he had bartered from a goldsmith for bandaging burns, long and delicate tools with handles like sheers but without blades. Instead of using them as the goldsmith had, he used them to pull bits from wounds or manipulate pieces of flesh. Beyond those, he pulled a set of fine bladed knives, their blades a material like black glass rather than steel. It came from somewhere in the Sea of Ash, he had been told, and the knives held an edge better than any blade of metal so fine ever would. He used them for the finest surgical work, especially where scars could matter, or on children, and they were worth more than their weight in sovereigns to him. He noticed the green eyes watching him, from under the fringe of white hair, and he sat the flask of anesthetic next to the last of the knives.

“What are you doing?” Was that curiosity in the dusky voice, Anders wondered.

“I thought I would rely, as much as I could, on non-magical means to do as much as I could before resorting to the magical.” That was, in part, true. He was quite tired.

“I -” Fenris seemed unable to speak the words, but a look of gratitude flashed across the narrow face.

“Don’t thank me yet. This is going to hurt. A lot.” Anders uncorked the flask of anesthetic and handed it to Fenris. “Here, I’ll need you to apply this, as completely as you can, to … everywhere down there. It will help numb the pain.”

Fenris took the vial, sniffed it and made a face. But he obeyed, and Anders noted, from the corner of his eye, the ginger way that Fenris applied the ointment to particular areas. Those must hurt to the touch, and as such he made a note of where not to touch unless he could avoid it.

“Now, this is where you are going to have to trust me, hard as that might be.” A suspicious look, but silence followed. “This is going to hurt, so I’m going to need to have you lay back and lay as still as you can while I work. I can, if you are willing, restrain you, but -” a feral snarl, soundless but enough to make him stop the line of inquiry.


	4. Chapter 4

“Would you at least like a belt to bite? It helps sometimes, to keep you from biting through your lips.” The look that Fenris gave him was unreadable to the mage. Was that gratitude? Confusion? He could not tell. And so, wordlessly, Anders removed the thin leather band that held his robes’ outer layers tight and, folding it, handed it to the elf. He expected anger, revulsion, rejection of the kindness: instead, he did clearly see gratitude on the elf’s face.

“Lay back, and let me see if the numbing agent has set in enough that I can get to work, alright?” He wished he had more light, but this would be enough, he thought, to at least repair the worst of this before he applied magic to the problem. He had to, after all, remove the metal before he could heal the damage it had done over the years to the flesh.

As he tested the sensitivity of the flesh with a nail-tip, he wondered idly how long ago this had been done. Had it been before Fenris had lost his memories, or after? Had it been done during the lyrium branding? He didn’t know enough about Tevinter slavery to know the answer. And why now, he wondered as he draped a strip of clean cloth over the bare belly in order to have a place to set his tools and the wool scraps he would use to blot the blood, did Fenris want to have this healed? He wished he knew, but knew he could understand the desire to be free of those things that marked him as an owned thing.

He wishes, Justice rumbled, to be a free man among free men. Is that not enough? And Anders had to agree, that yes, it was enough, but his human curiosity still prodded at his thoughts. You could ask, Justice replied to those same thoughts. But Anders merely shook his head, denying the impulse. He would, begrudgingly, give the mage hating bastard his privacy.

Checking the tenderness of the flesh one last time, Anders asked: “Fenris, are you ready?” There was a grunt, an affirmative, or a curse, he knew not what. “I”m going to start with - with -” He shuddered, trying to quell his stomach. “With the large ring.”

Fenris’ head shot up, the elf glaring at him, the belt between his teeth forgotten. Before he could speak Anders raised a hand. “I assumed you wanted it gone as well? That has to be painful.” Fenris slumped back, glaring daggers at the ceiling.

“Burn you, mage. Just get it done with. The sooner all this blighted magister metal is out of me the better.” He head a decided thump of Fenris’ head hitting the table for a second time.

“Before I do, do you mind me asking why? I could have done this at any time, yet you’ve waited years. You could have had any healer with any talent at least remove -” Why was it so hard to say, he wondered. “The worst of it.”

“Do you plan on talking me to death, or are you going to get this over with.” Fenris did not bother to look up again.

“Fine, have it your way. I’m going to need to use a small bit of magic here first, but only to clean my knife here and to cut the first ring. After that, it will all be done the hard way until I get it out. Then I can figure out what else to do.” And hope, Anders added to himself, that you’ve passed out from pain by then, or that you’ve turned tail and run like the coward you really are.

There was a grunt, and Anders took it as a sign of acknowledgement. Picking up the largest of the knives, its blade barely the size of a thumbnail, he bent over the work surface. He scanned the area, then placed a finger above where the ring ran, just below the skin, and slowly traced the curve until he found a spot sufficiently far away from both a lyrium line and any major nerves or blood vessels. Then, carefully, he channeled a small thread of heat into the glass of the knife, cleaning it of any residual dirt it might have picked up in the box, and then made a deft incision no longer than a finger’s width across the flesh. The blade was sharp enough he doubted the elf felt the cut for more than a moment.


	5. Chapter 5

The black glass cut deeply and cleanly, and even with the blood welling around the blade Anders could feel when it touched the metal beneath. Wiping away the blood, he could see the glint of the metal inside the clean split in the skin, and he swore quietly to himself. No man should have to endure such as this, he thought, and for a moment wondered if it was Justice’s thought or his own. The two were becoming so hard to tell apart. But at this moment, it did not matter. Was it any wonder the elf hated all magic stood for, when things like this had been done to him with it?

But magic can heal, just as it can wound, thought Anders, and with his finger, he reached into the small incision, drawing a hiss of pain from Fenris, and he threaded a tiny bit of his magic into the metal, using his will to create a break in the solid ring more cleanly than any blacksmith or silversmith could ever have made with his tools.

Fenris gasped with pain, and Anders saw more than felt the release of tension in the metal as the two sides of the cut sprang slightly apart, one edge rising just out of the wound. Well, that makes things slightly easier, Anders thought to himself as he reached for a pair of thin nosed pliers. He had seen smiths use tools much like these to bend and shape wire, so this use seemed quite normal, in a way. With another thread of magic, he cleaned the tips of these as well, then reached to grasp the free end of the broken ring with them. Once he had a good grip, he used his free hand to brace either side of the skin at the wound, so as not to widen the cut any more than need be and to keep the skin from tearing, and gave a slow, careful tug at the ring.

A bright length of silverite slid free of the wet red flesh, bringing with it a slight well of blood, and Fenris made a sound half way between a groan and a whimper. It was less than half a finger’s length so far, but it was a start. Bracing himself again, and repositioning the tool closer to the place where metal left flesh, he tugged, slowly, again. And again. And again.

Soon, a finger length of bright metal was coiled out of the skin, and Anders used the same spell he had before to cut the exposed metal off near the skin. He lifted it, wondering if Fenris could see it as he did so, and dropped it in the ceramic bowl next to him on the small shelf. The sound was perhaps more horrible than the pained noises Fenris made, for the cold metallic realism of it.

“Half way there,” Anders said, more to himself, then, at Fenris, “Don’t hold your breath. Breath deeply and evenly. It will make it at least feel less painful when I pull.” Fenris growled around a mouth full of belt, but Anders saw the rise and fall of his chest even out.

He reached down again, and began repeating the process, tugging the curved arc of metal free from the flesh. Every so often he would blot away the blood with a scrap of the clean wool, noticing how dark the liquid was, noticing how healthy the tissue around the ring appeared in the incision. This, at least, had been done well, and with a very powerful bit of healing magic. The tissue would be thickly built up in a tube around the object, but there would be no infections in the process. He hoped he could prevent any infections that might occur now, and remove that tube of space so that healthy tissue could replace it. That would take his magic, but before then, the metal had to be gone. With a final tug, he pulled the last length of the metal free, the split end where he had broken the circle with his magic coming out the opposite side with a wet sucking sound. Disgusted, Anders dropped it along side the first half in the ceramic bowl. The sound was hollow, painful, and made Anders think of the sounds of Templar boots on flagstone floors.

“There,” he said, standing straight from his bent position. “That is one part done.” He looked down at Fenris, noticing how sallow the elf looked. He had let the belt slide from between his teeth, but was still clenching his jaw. “How are you feeling? Are you up for me continuing?”

“Finish it,” was all the ex-slave said, and Anders sighed.


	6. Chapter 6

“You know, if you bleed out on this table, or die from shock, Hawke would kill me. Though I’m not sure why, truth be told.” An odd look at the mention of their friend’s name, but too brief for Anders to catch more than that. He ran a hand through his hair, noticing then the dampness of sweat from prolonged concentration, and he wondered, idly, if Hawke had anything to do with this.

“But if you are fine, I will move on. I’m going to pull out that -” again, a phrase or word he couldn’t begin to say, but he touched, lightly, the metal grommet. “Then I will need to do as I did before, and cut the metal of the ring with magic.” Why was he explaining himself, he wondered. Usually he never bothered, only telling the patient the basics of what they needed to know, rather than a detailed description of what he was going to do.

He felt, suddenly, like he did when dealing with a young child, always careful to explain his actions so as not to frighten either parent or child alike. The behavior had been unconscious, but it seemed to be working. He is, after all, little more than a child, supplied Justice in his mind. But so are so many of you, the spirit finished, and Anders wished he could silence the voice.

Anders, with only that moment of pause, picked up a pair of heavy tweezers, the sort a jeweler might use to manipulate the prongs of a setting with, and reached deftly for the small, silvery grommet on the underside of the mangled shaft. He exposed the offending object with a deft finger, pulling the skin around it taunt between two fingers before he probed carefully at it for a moment, trying to decide the best way to remove it without damaging the tissue. It had been inserted before the flesh had healed completely, and the tissue was ridged around the metal on both inside and out. Fenris grunted, but the sound was annoyance, rather than pain at the ministrations.

Fine, thought Anders, I’ll have to make it worse to make it better.

He raised one of the finer black glass knives, holding its reed handle steadily in his opposite hand from the tweezers, and slowly cut away a bit of the raised tissue that covered the lip of the ring. Through his hand, Anders felt Fenris stiffen with the pain, then heard the grunt and click of teeth as they bit into his belt. This elf is going to owe me a new belt after this, with all those teeth marks, he thought as he worked.

With another cut, he removed enough tissue to get the tips of the tweezers under the ring, and to slowly lift the metal edge. Fortunately, the metal was soft enough he had little trouble bending it, which gave him an idea. With a deft pinch, he clamped the tweezers down over the metal shape, squeezing its outer walls together. There was a sharp intake of breath from Fenris, but nothing more, and so Anders - with a sharp twist of his writs - pulled the now mangled metal grommet free.

As he dropped it into the bowl, Fenris’s scream bubbled up, muffled only by his jaws clenched tightly around the leather of the belt between his teeth.


	7. Chapter 7

Anders was sure that he was going to vomit. Between the scream that never seemed to end, and the slow well of blood from the ruin of skin now puckering where the metal grommet had been located on the lower surface of the twisted mass of flesh between Fenris’ legs, his own body twisted internally in sympathetic pain.

And then there was an echoing silence, filled only with the sound of rapped, shallow breathing, and for a moment Anders could not tell if it was his own or the prone elf on the table. At last, the thundering of blood in his ears eased, and he could hear Fenris’ own breath slowing again to the regular, deep breathing of someone trying to control their breath. The elf was pale, sweat beaded on his skin, and the veins of lyrium that traced every contour shimmered slightly, a faint pulse of light that sang inside Anders’ head. He felt Justice watching through his eyes, but the spirit did nothing more, but he knew that its nature was to feel the outrage of those who had not found justice. The worst part was that, was he to manage to do this right he could not begin to heal any of the tissue until the last of the metal was removed.

“Mage,” the croaking voice startled him from his contemplation. He bent over the table, looking down into a set of eyes whose pupils were contracted to pinpricks despite the low light. “Mage.”

“I do have a name, Fenris.” There was a wince, but the eyes did not focus on his face, and Anders regretted the words immediately.

Suddenly, a gauntleted hand rose and fisted in Ander’s robes, pulling him down closer. “Anders,” Fenris breath was still ragged as he spoke, and Anders could see the teeth marks in the belt he had been gripping in his teeth now clenched in the other fist. “Do not stop. Finish this. I must -” a harsh intake of breath, followed by a sound that might have been a whimper, “I must have this undone. I cannot live this way any longer.”

Despite himself, Anders found his hand reaching up and wrapping around the metal and leather of the gauntlet clutching his robes. The motion was not his own, but he understood Justice’s motivation. “Why now,” he asked, “I could have done this the day you first came into this clinic with Hawke.” And again, there was the strange look on the angular face at the mention of Hawke’s name.

Fenris shook his head, a violent motion. “No. You will not tell Hawke of this. I have to be -” another sharp intake of breath, and Fenris clenched his jaws. “Finish, please.” The hand let go of his robes, and Anders slowly lowered it to the table, letting it go. Fenris gripped the borrowed length of leather in his hand, and nodded up at Anders, his green eyes focusing for a moment on the mage.

“Alright.” Anders turned from Fenris’ face, returning his gaze to his work. He gathered up several bits of clean fleece and carefully blotted the blood away, tossing each to the side after he was done. He wished he had some clean water or time to boil some, but for now this would have to do.

“Fenris?” There was a grunt from the warrior. “I’m going to use a bit of magic to clean up my tools, and then I’m going to cut the ring. Once that is done,” he rested a hand on the curl of flesh still feeling his stomach clench at the very thought of how this might have been done, let alone living with it, “I will see how I can remove the damaged tissue and the last pieces of metal.”

Fenris gave another grunt and so Anders proceeded to clean his tools. The small glass-like blades cleaned easily, taking the magic heat readily. That would remove anything that might have settled on the blades in the few minutes they had rested in what passed for the open air of Darktown. As he worked, he could not help but think about all the times Fenris had spoke against mages, of how often he had cast looks of pure venom at any mage Hawke had helped. In part, now he had more of an understanding, but it did not excuse - no, perhaps it did not have to. He was searching too hard for meaning in this. But he was sure there was something more here.


	8. Chapter 8

The red steel ring glinted an angry dull red in the lamp light, and Anders glared at the hateful thing. How could Fenris have lived all these years with the mutilation that had been done to these intimate parts of his person?

It struck Anders then, with that thought as he reached to touch that dull red ring of metal, how painfully intimate what he was doing actually was. How well did he even know the elf, even after all these years? Anders could not help but realize that his perceptions of Fenris were only really an elf shaped blur of dourness and anger. And so he paused, hands held poised, looking down at what he was doing - and at whom he was doing it to. Fenris lay with his eyes closed, a sheen of sweat making his faintly bronzed skin glow in the light of the oil lamp. A faint pulse of blue ghosted along the lines of lyrium branded into the skin, and Anders caught himself realizing that very rarely had he looked beyond those silvery lines and the grim demeanor to see the elf underneath them.

Am I so caught up in the fact he hates mages to see that he does have real reason to, Anders wondered, and felt the ripple of a thought following his own answer that the focus on one set of injustices often blinds a mind to the millions of others that exist.

Before him, with bare thighs spread slightly, knees bent over the edge of the rough table with its ragged grey cover, Fenris was exposed painfully. Having taken off only the lower portions of his armor, there was a strange disconnect between the outline of the armor and body that Anders knew and the bone, muscle, and sinew form beneath. And between those bared legs - and Anders could not help but notice as his hands ghosted over the skin that they were nearly completely hairless, so unlike a human - the ruin of twisted flesh glared up at Anders, the red steel ring a baleful eye.

Again, he slowly lay his fingertips to either side of the twisted organ, pausing only to wipe away another small trickle of blood from the gaping hole where the metal grommet had been at the base of the shaft. Bringing out the magic from that place inside him where his spirit touched the Fade, he ran a trickle of healing magic through his fingers and into the flesh, probing once more to assess the damage, focusing now on the points where the horrible arc of metal intersected flesh.

There again, he felt the damage to both the ligaments below the front bones of the pelvis and the surrounding muscles. The damage was horrific, an arc of burn scaring, infection, and blistering that must leave a knot of constant pain within the gut. And, there again he felt the tube of metal nested within the passage of the shaft, held in place with the metal ring. With the foreskin sewn shut - Anders amazed at the delicate stitching with a sick fascination - he could not see exactly how the metal fit within the organ. It was difficult to feel much more detail because the surrounding tissue was a mass of scaring, and Anders winced internally at the mess that he would have to untangle beneath the fragile skin. With a sigh, he released the magic, feeling his stomach churn.

He grit his teeth, aware again at the surge of anger that blended his own emotion and the nature of the spirit sharing his flesh. With a painful push, he shoved down the feeling, and focused again. Letting his fingertips ghost over the tissue, feeling the knots of tortured tissue beneath the skin, he let the tips of his first two fingers and thumb of each hand come to rest on the exposed metal. It felt strangely cool, startling against the nearly feverishly hot skin surrounding it, and Anders wondered briefly if there was some Tevinter Magister magic buried inside it. But his own magic did not feel any other when he had touched it before, and so if it did hold some trap or spell, there was little he could do about it.

Time to do this, he thought. Time to get this thing out. And then the real work will begin.

With a deep breath, he drew forth his magic again, reaching into the metal beneath his fingers. And, with a sound like crushed glass, the ring broke smoothly - each half now free of the other but each still embedded in its domain of ruined flesh along its arc.


	9. Chapter 9

A breath that he did not realize he had been holding suddenly escaped in an explosive sigh. Anders wasn’t sure exactly what he had been expecting when the ring broke, but in truth this was rather anti-climatic. The two halves slipped free of his fingers but barely separated, the smooth breaks in the metal oily and slick against his fingers. As he let them go, they barely separated, each half moon of metal still embedded in flesh trained to its twisted shape so completely that it would not - could not - return to its normal position.

Anders grimaced at the sight, then glanced towards Fenris’ face. “Are you ready, Fenris? I’m going to take out the upper half of the ring, then I’ll see what I can do about the other half.”

“Just do what you must,” was the only reply Anders got, though he could hear the strain of pain in the gruff reply.

As he reached for one of the long necked jeweler’s tools, meant for gripping and manipulating small parts deep within a piece, he mumbled:“Would it kill you to be just a little more polite? I mean really.” But there was no sign that the elf has heard his comment.

With the birdlike metal implement, he carefully gripped one end of the upper half of the ring. Best to remove this part, he thought, before trying to deal with the rest. That will be nothing but a mess. With a clean bit of fleece he carefully pushed against the opposite end of the arc of red steel, then tugged as gently as he could with the tool. He was amazed at how smoothly it slid, the end of the metal vanishing inside the body as more of its far side emerged. There was only a slight hiss of pain from Fenris, more a sharp intake of breath, when, with a wet sucking sound that turned Anders’ stomach, the half of the ring came free of the flesh completely. Amazingly, there was virtually no blood. Disgusted, he discarded the metal crescent in the bowl with the rest of the pieces he had removed.

Justice, without Anders realizing at first, brought forth a small well of magic, feeling the extent of the damage. It seems to have been done quite skillfully, the spirit’s thought rumbled, it did not damage the tendon beyond all but a small bit of scaring. The worst damage is away from anything vital, it seems. Anders swiftly wrested control away from the spirit, dampening the magic. But he had seen what Justice had. This ring, as he suspected, had been red hot when it had entered flesh, cauterizing the wound as it made it. The very idea twisted his guts with disgust and rage, then nausea as he thought about the weeks of agony that must have followed the process.

Pressing his fingers into his eyes, unconscious of the slight smear of blood he drug across his temples with fingertips, Anders fought down the rage. It did him no good right now, not when he still had so much left to do. He looked down through his fingers, taking in still what was left. Even when he had removed the arc of visible metal, there was still whatever it was that he was going to find within the sewn shut foreskin. And beyond that, years - perhaps decades - of being held in such an unnatural position had warped and twisted the flesh of the organ. His stomach clenched again as he thought of the horrific pain some very basic bodily processes would have caused to any man bound and twisted in such a way.

Worse was the nagging doubt that even with his skill at healing, he would be unable to completely repair the damage. He trusts me to be able to undo this. I have to be able to undo this. Maybe if I can undo this, he will stop hating at least this mage, see that we can do good as well as evil. The thoughts were a tumble in his head. But behind them all was still the nagging question of why now, after these few years.

And whatever this was, it had to do with Hawke. Anders sighed into his hands, trying not to think about it.


	10. Chapter 10

Anders pulled his hands away from his face, trying to focus on what his next steps where to be. He could remove the other half of the ring, but that would risk dislodging whatever pieces of metal were embedded within the shaft. No, it seemed a better idea to open the foreskin, and get a grip on the object, then remove the ring before removing the rest of the metal. That would be more complicated, but less likely to cause any further damage, he hoped.

Again, he found his gaze drawn to the taunt muscles and sinews under the lightly bronzed skin of thighs and hips. He could appreciate a well formed man, there was no denying, but here he found himself rather at a loss. There were plenty of elves who had come through his clinic, though that number had decidedly increased since Merrill had been sending him patients. But here, he found himself wondering about the trace lines of lyrium - whose song both he and Justice could hear even from this distance - and rather distracted by the nearly carved elegance of the visible joints. He had, he had to admit, never seen anyone with pretty knees before. How could such beauty have been marred by such unthinking, barbarous men? Was it any wonder he hated mages so, and all they represented, if the Tevinter Imperium had done this to a slave?

He sighed, an out rush of air that felt too hot in his lungs to hold. With a finger he carefully traced the lines of the bent and mangled organ, aware painfully of how sensitive the flesh must be, even with the numbing agent. Fenris seemed lost in his breathing, either gone at last to the blissful unawareness of unconsciousness or in some hyperventilated state. Either one was preferable to consciousness for what came next, in Anders’ opinion.

But then a gaunteleted hand raised, reaching towards Anders’ arm. The grip was still amazingly strong, and he could feel the light pulse of the lyrium lines in the elf’s palm against his skin like a burning vibration.

“Mage,” the elf croaked, his raspy voice near breaking. “I know the worst is to come. Do this,” and the hand jestured towards his nethers, “Fix this. I must be free of this.”

Anders, despite his thoughts that it was a painfully bad idea, reached out and took the gauntleted hand from his arm, holding it firmly in his own hands. There was cold sweat on the palm, and the leather straps seemed damp from it.

“Fenris. Why?” He swallowed, trying to think of how to ask. “Why now?”

Fenris raised his head, too large green eyes looking up at Anders with the first expression that wasn’t anger or disgust Anders had thought he had ever seen from the elf. The look was almost sorrowful, pained, as if the reasons were too painful to say. And then the elf croaked: “Hawke.”

The name felt like a cold dagger in Anders’ heart. He had, he realized, known that Fenris and Hawke had been growing closer in the last year. There had been signs, glances, words between them. But even then, Anders had tried to ignore them. He had admitted to himself after the Deep Roads that he felt something for Hawke, but he knew it would not - could not - ever be more than the admiration of one friend for another.

But Fenris was still speaking. “He wants,” Fenris swallowed, and Anders was aware that he should not delay healing what work he had done much longer, “He wants me. And I cannot -” another swallow, this time deeper, “I cannot allow him to see this ruin that they made of me. I must be,” again the convulsive swallow, and now Anders realized it was emotion, not pain, “I must be whole for him. I cannot give him this,” his hand waved again at his lower half, “when what he deserves is a whole man.” In that, Anders saw the baleful glare of jealousy and anger aimed at him.

Anders felt stunned. Did Fenris really think he could be a threat to anything between the elf and Hawke? Of course, he had his interest, but he knew that he could not pursue it. Whatever love life he had once had, it was well behind him, thanks to Justice. But Fenris could not know this, and so found his closeness with Hawke a threat.


	11. Chapter 11

There’s a dark hollow inside Anders at the thought that perhaps Fenris’ real hatred for him has nothing to do with being a mage, or with magic, or anything of the sort - that instead the elf sees him as a rival, as someone to compete with for Hawke’s affections. But might the two be one in the same? Anders shook his head, trying to clear it, trying to focus on the task at hand. It does not matter, rumbled his own thoughts, intertwined with Justice’s, what matters is that this must be undone.

Anders tried not to shiver at the next words he found himself thinking. Then there must be vengeance for this.

Flexing his fingers, then curling them up into fists hard enough to dig his nails into his palms almost painfully, he brought himself back to focus. That was becoming more difficult by the day, and it worried him that even basic concentration was becoming so difficult to find.

With fingers that he once remembered a Templar saying were too stubby for a proper mage’s he picked up the smallest of the black glass-like bladed knives and drew a small flare of heat through it to clean it. With the other hand, hesitantly, he reached down to lift the twisted and violated end of the elf’s organ. The touch of his fingers made Fenris start slightly, a tightening of abdominal and leg muscles and a sharp intake of breath, and again Anders felt the reminder of how intimate this was. Does he really trust me to do this, or is it something more complicated than that, he wondered, the thought sliding idly by before being knocked completely from his mind.

With his fingers touching the skin, he could feel that something was truly not right beneath the sealed foreskin beyond the places where the cruel half moon of metal intersected it. There were unnatural lumps, hard spots that might be scar tissue or active cysts, and strangely striated areas under the skin that felt like the ridges of badly healed incisions. Yet even through this Anders could not help but notice the strangely soft, almost velvety texture of the few spots of skin on the shaft that felt intact. The cruelty here, the debasement of basic person, reminded him painfully of the suffering of some mages he had seen over the years in the Circle. Yet in many ways this went beyond all but the worst things the Templars could do to a mage.

Ignoring speculation of what horrors he might find once he opened the closed flesh, Anders lifted the tip gently to examine the surface where he would need to make his incision. Again, he saw with sick fascination the delicate nature of the sutures which had drawn closed the end of the foreskin. The sutures themselves were long gone, but they left in their place a line of neatly drawn hash-marks across the skin, white against the light bronze of the elf’s natural skin tone. This had been a skilled hand, one that had perhaps done this thousands of times. The idea of what that man’s life must be like, what his mind must be like to do this to so many, frightened Anders deeply.

No more delays, he reminded himself. This must be done. “Fenris, brace yourself. I’m going to make the cut.” Hopefully I’ll only need to make this one, he added to himself.

As best he could, he used thumb and forefinger of his hand to clear the end of the tight tube of skin away from the sensitive gland beneath, though he felt a disgusting resistance as he did so that told him things would not be pretty once he had opened this. Then, holding it as steady as he could, he pressed the black blade’s tip into the flesh, using it to draw a line that flowered red through the thickness of the scar tissue, parting each of the white scars like cutting a seam in cloth.

To Anders, the act of parting flesh like this was both strangely beautiful and horrifying. He could feel the power of the blood welling up, knowing its enchanting, tempting song, and see how easily so many mages could have fallen down this well of horror. Too, he felt both the horror and the necessity of opening a patient in any way. To cause physical damage to heal was one of the most difficult things he had faced when becoming a healer. And he faced it again now, his own agony mirroring Fenris’.


	12. Chapter 12

Fenris, Andraste help him, lay perfectly still, until the tip of the blade was free of the flesh. Then the scream came, starting as rapid breathing, working its way up from his chest, and then out in a muted growl around the belt clenched tightly in his teeth, rising in pitch to the sound a wounded beast might make. The lyrium lines flared, their blue light nearly blinding, and Anders’ tools, laid out across the elf’s belly on the strip of cloth, rolled off and onto the sheet to either side as the muscles beneath heaved. Anders made no move to pick them up.

He waited, his own stomach in a tight knot of nausea and pain and breath ragged, until the scream tapered off to a whimper, the lyrium lines dulling to a slight pulsing throb that seemed to strangely be in time to the pulse Anders could feel through his fingertips. He still gripped the foreskin, holding it closed below where he had made the incision. With the dull side of the black blade, he carefully parted each side of the incision, making sure that he had pierced through the opposite side of the skin along the length of the cut before he moved on. Fenris’ breath hissed between his teeth with each touch, and Anders found himself painfully aware of how tightly the elf’s balls were contracted against his body, and that his own curled painfully into him in sympathetic fear. Desperately he wanted this to be done, but he could not, dared not, hurry.

Setting aside the knife, disregarding his fallen tools, Anders carefully added a second thumb and forefinger to where the first already was. This was going to be the worst part, he was sure, but dared not say it lest his prediction not be true. Slowly, he eased the pressure off the skin, now not so much holding it in place as merely holding it, and felt how tightly drawn it was, unnaturally so, from years of being held closed by the sutures, and then by grown together flesh. But even with that, Anders could see that most of the proper length of the foreskin had been maintained, though he wondered how much of the rest of the structures it hid had been.

No time like the present to find out, he thought grimly, feeling his back molars grind as he clenched his jaw.

Slowly, using thumb and forefinger to either side as a guide, he began the painfully slow process of retracting the elf’s foreskin for what must be the first time in possibly decades. Under his fingers he could feel the unnatural set of lumps and ridges he had felt before, and his stomach turned as he felt them shift under pressure. Slowly, the slit he had cut opened, bloody red edges still weeping, and parted. Anders nearly lost his grip, and his meager dinner, at the sight it revealed.

Protruding from the glands at the tip, which themselves Anders could already see had been ravaged by infections over many years, was a glinting silverite rod. It curved outwards as it exited flesh, parting to either side of the head on the lower side, vanishing under the rest of the unretracted foreskin. Well, this solves the problem of whatever I was feeling internally being lost if I removed the redsteel ring, Anders thought bitterly.

The hesitation, at least, had allowed Fenris a moment to slow his breathing. But Anders could not stop half way. Again, slowly, using both thumbs and forefingers as guides, he parted the now opened flesh, pulling it back and down as far as he dared with the redsteel ring still in place. As it cleared the silverite object, now revealed to be a single ring looping behind the glands and anchored by its internal stem, Fenris groaned in pain, his lyrium flaring. To Anders’ relief, there was no following scream as he finished the agonizing process, and, to his surprise, it seemed the internal and external layers of tissue had remained separated over the years.

But what it revealed - beyond that silverite horror he had already seen - was a horror to his senses as a healer. The underlying organ was only recognizable because Anders knew roughly what it was supposed to look like. This time, it was all Anders could do not to be sick on the dirt floor of the room, swallowing back the rising vomit.

Tevinter had much to answer for.

**Author's Note:**

> This will get finished eventually. I promise.


End file.
